Azerbaijan: experts offer electoral reforms

Today, fifteen activists of the civil society of Azerbaijan presented to the public the "Memorandum on main directions of improvement of electoral legislation and guarantee of democracy at October 2013 presidential election". The authors of the document offer all the political forces of the country to discuss their proposals for development of joint measures to reform the electoral legislation.

The "Memorandum on main directions of improvement of electoral legislation and guarantee of democracy at presidential election, scheduled for October 16, 2013" is developed by experts in the field of elections, lawyers, former members of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

The aim of the adoption of the memorandum is to call on all political forces in the country, NGOs, specializing in election issues, to conduct public discussions of the offered proposals to develop a joint platform of measures to reform the electoral legislation and practice. This was reported by Anar Mamedli, one of the authors of the document, the head of the Centre for Monitoring Elections and Democracy Training (CMEDT).

"This is the only way to ensure citizens' confidence in the election process," Anar Mamedli stated in his interview to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The authors of the document believe that after 1992, no elections, held in Azerbaijan, complied with the Western standards of free, fair, and transparent elections.

According to the Memorandum, democratic provisions of the Constitution of 1995 and electoral laws of 1998 and 2003 were later deprived of their strength and replaced by retrograde norms.

Among the measures that have worsened the electoral legislation and practice, the Memorandum mentions establishment of control of the ruling party over the election commissions, the abolition of the proportional system of elections to the Parliament, the reduction of the terms of the election and the pre-election campaign, the abolition of cash deposit as an alternative measure for the registration of candidates, and the restriction of opportunities for pre-election campaigning in the electronic media.

Broad public discussion of the Memorandum will take place till the end of the year.

Mirali Guseinov, the head of the Centre for Democracy Studies, believes that the Memorandum may represent an impulse for dialogue between the authorities and political forces for the election issues.